SI Skewers Ruben Amaro

Faced with upgrading a roster whose position players were the league’s oldest by nearly a year, Amaro has succeeded in getting Young — not once but twice — if not significantly younger. In December, he traded Lindblom, a reliever acquired from the Dodgers for Victorino, as well as pitching prospect Lisalverto Bonilla to Texas in exchange for 36-year-old Michael Young, whose performance collapsed to .277/.312/.370 in 2012, his worst slash line since 2002. He’ll take over third base in place of Polanco, who to be fair is a year older and about half as durable, but at least able to do something besides imitate a matador at the hot corner. If there’s good news, it’s that the Rangers are paying $10 million of Young’s $16 million salary.

Not Young enough? To rebuild an outfield depleted not only by those trades but by the free agent departure of Pierre, Amaro went out and signed 27-year-old Delmon Young to a one-year, $750,000 deal, with incentives that can take it to $3.5 million. The money is inconsequential enough, but it looks like an overpay for a player who hit .267/.296/.411 with 18 homers last year with a −0.9 Wins Above Replacement Player mark even while being limited to just 31 games in the field, all of them in left. His 2012 wasn’t an isolated incident; once the top prospect in the game, he has been worth all of 1.2 WARP in a career of 3,575 plate appearances, suitable for the short half of a platoon (.307/.341/.483 lifetime against lefties, .275/.307/.401 against righties) but not much more, and that’s without considering his non-hitting problems. In his infinite wisdom, Amaro doesn’t plan to platoon Young, he plans to make him the everyday rightfielder — a position Young hasn’t played since 2007, when he was still a Devil Ray. Oh, and he’s coming off surgery to remove bone spurs in his ankle and has a weight clause built into his contract.

pretty damn excited for the phils to make the playoffs this year and shove it in the face of all these naysayers. veteran team that knows how to win. they have enough talent, just need to stay healthhy

I like how Kyle has done a complete 180 on Rube.
I remember years ago how Rube did nothing wrong according to Kyle, and how numbers were evil, and how Kyle was whacking off because he sat a few seats behind Rube at a game in Florida.
Now its stuff like this.
Makes me think that maybe Kyle knows nothing about sports, and simply copies and pastes other people’s work on this site, and calls it “irreverance”.

This guy gave the Brewers a better grade on their offseason than the Phillies. Their biggest offseason upgrade was Tom Gorzelanny, and the Parkinson’s probable Mike Gonzalez. I’m taking this ass hole with a grain of salt

I still don’t understand why you dump Pence at the deadline last year. He was under team control for another year so instead of going to arbitration with a solid RF, you get Young and platoon unproven pups in left? It makes no sense!

If you need SI to tell you this was a shitty offseason for the Phils, you might be a redneck.
This site flipflops loyalties all the time. Give it a few months before Charlie Manuel is the #1 target here.

Does Ruben even look at any advanced stats??? He keeps picking up guys who can’t field, don’t walk, and are just bad baseball players. It’s 2013 look up WAR or at least OBP!!!
This season is going to be a disaster. Their defense is going to be one of the all time worst. One thing this is city is very unforgiving is routine plays, and right now the Young brothers are going to make a lot of routine plays into an adventure.
Blow it up! We can’t compete with the Nats and Braves anyway!

Hahaha Dane.
I’ve got to say though. Aside from the Cliff Lee hysteria, and Pence’s great half-year, Rube hasn’t brought much excitement to the Phillies. This team is old and we’ll see a lot of injuries this year. Howard’s a given 2 months out at some random point in the season, granted he doesn’t already have an injury we won’t hear about until late February.

I wish they would’ve just signed Willinham and/or Kubel a year ago and been done with this shit.
Hopefully Delmon Young gets cut in Spring Training. He’s terrible.
I’d rather see Brown in left, Rever in center and Ruf in right then see Delmon Fucking Young start everyday.
FACE

Alex, what does winning 102 games two years ago have to do with anything? I love when people use that empty stat, they still failed to hit in the playoffs which has been their bane the past 3 years. The Phillies hitters have some of the worst approaches at the plate, which is the exact reason why they got rid of guys like victorino and pence who would swing at worm-burners with a 3-0 count and down by 2-runs. For a team of veterans they are pretty ill disciplined… something Reuben said he was going to change after the Cardinals NLDS, though we have yet to see.
timbo slice mentioned Charlie and I’m glad he did because Manuel gets the BIGGEST free pass in this town out of anyone. He wins a World Series, which in its own right is amazing, but rarely does he get criticized outside of when his questionable in-game decisions cost them games. He plays to favorites, is tremendously stubborn, and is supposed to be a hitting guru, yet plate approaches and situational hitting are virtually absent from some players.
They could be good this year, they could be terrible, or they could be mediocre like they were last year. Everything is contingent upon many factors… mainly the health and performance (relative to their past numbers) of Halladay, Utley, and Howard. I personally don’t want to get my hopes up, but why don’t we all just wait and see

I don’t think the offseason was that bad. Other than a few mediocre replacements in the lineup, I think the bullpen should rival the best bullpens. Plus Ben Revere is getting no love only because he can’t hit homeruns, when in reality, the aging Phillies needed more speed than pop to be honest, and Ben Revere should answer that.